right here in new york city. all of this leading up to the commander comn. chief forum. hillary clinton, donald trump. they're going to be on board for that live event moderated by matt lauer. it's tomorrow 8:00 p.m. eastern on both nbc and msnbc. that does it for this hour. i'm steve kornacki. "mtp daily" starts right now. if it's tuesday, it's new poll day apparently. trump's ahead in one new poll. well, clinton as head in another -- wait a minute, they're tied in another new poll. that's right. we're going to try to make sense of all of the numbers that have been hitting you today. tonight, so many new polls and so little clarity. separating the news from the noise. plus the candidates make their pitches on how to keep america safe. >> we are going to solve the isis problem. >> he says he has a secret plan to defeat isis. but the secret is he has no plan. >> and did donald trump make a campaign contribution to stop an investigation into trump

university? we have the latest. >> i don't mess around, and neither does donald trump. >> this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington and welcome to "mtp daily." it's 63 days until election day. everyone is going to try to figure out where exactly the race stands today as we hit the home stretch. but if you read today's polls, you won't find any claty i the headlines out there. pretty much it's a choose your own adventure of polling chaos. clinton maintains a lead. up six points. wait. the race is tightening in the home stretch. wait a minute. shock poll, trump leads clinton. wait a minute. clinton could win texas? dead heat there? you get our picture. folks, it's time for a bit of a reality check, and let's start with the big shock from this morning, the cnn poll that has gotten the most attention.

they have trump up two among likely voters. but this poll assumes a lot of things. it assumes an electorate that we've never seen before. whites without a college degree appear to make up nearly half of their sample. in 2012, by the way, whites without a college degree was slightly more than a third of all voters. so when you reweight the actual cnn numbers to match how the electorate looked in 2012, this same poll would actually have shown clinton up four points. the point is your numbers may not be wrong but your weighting may be. your assumptions. so the cnn folks assumed an electorate that is not an impossible scenario for trump. but it would be an historic shift if it occurred. the other shock poll that came out today was from the "washington post" and they did a tremendous undertaking, trying to survey all 50 states within the same four-week period. they used our friends at survey monkey to do that. and one of their state results has texas, yes texas, as a tossup with clinton leading by a point. same poll, of course, has

clinton trailing in iowa by four. so you'd say to yourself something strange must be happening because if obama won iowa twice and texas hasn't gone blue since "play that funky music" topped the charts in '76. not that horrible vanilla ice version, sorry, vanilla ice. there's reason to be cautious. online state polls are a bit more volatile than the national samples when it comes to online. so here's a little bit of a reality check. sure, this race is closer nationally than it was a month ago. hard stop. that's when trump was battling the khan family and paul ryan. our nbc news survey monkey online tracking poll has clinton with a six-point lead in the two-way and in the four-way match-up her lead is four points. both unchanged in the last week. still, clinton holds a significant lead in our new nbc news battleground map. more on that in just a few minutes. but here's the big takeaway. it's hard to ignore all of the polling noise because it does drive perception even if some of those numbers are off. so you have to tread cautiously with all of these numbers, especially around labor day, and beware of shock polling unless that result happens again and again.

perception in the moment is not always a new reality. perception over time, that's another story. let's bring in two pros to help us out here. joined by the "washington post" chief correspondent dan balz and republican pollster glenn bolger, co-founder of republican opinion strategies. rated top pollster of the year i think in 2012. and of course there are republican partners -- republican half of our bipartisan polling team, nbc/"wall street journal." welcome to you both. >> thank you. >> i want to start with you. let's do the labor day polling. this is not the first time. i think i remember al gore down double digits in the first gallup poll right after labor day. weird numbers do show up this first week of labor day. >> yeah. they often do. i mean, we're through the conventions. although the last two cycles we weren't through the conventions. >> true. that's what made it a little more -- >> there's a little bit of apples and oranges this time versus the last two elections. but do you sometimes get kind of strange findings. i remember writing in 2008 about looking at indiana and minnesota

at about this time. indiana was very close. but minnesota was very close. you said, well, this can't be right. i mean, it's as you pointed out, are texas and iowa. >> one was right. indiana happened to be close. >> indiana happened to be close. >> minnesota wasn't. >> and i think that over time one of the things you see is that states perform relative to one another and relative to the national average. and over time they begin to settle in. but we're in a little bit of a volatile period. >> glenn, give me the consumer guide to digesting these polls this week. >> well, a couple of things. one is you want to look at the sample. and you talked a little about that in terms of college education. >> we've got the cnn one. do you agree with our change there? they had way too many non-college -- >> if you look at by party i.d., party identification, it's a plus four republican sample. i'd love it -- >> how great would that be? >> if the electorate were plus four republican. but it's just not. >> yeah. >> and it's not going to be on election day. so -- and they also polled a strange time.

they polled over labor day weekend. they started on thursday, finished on sunday. we don't do any -- you know, we certainly 308d on thursday and finished some projects then. but we don't poll on labor day weekend itself because -- and i hate to say this but socioeconomically, guess who's more likely not to be home. higher income, higher educated, higher socioeconomic status. and that's what's missing from their survey. >> you feel as if the wealthier, higher educated people are missing. >> yes. because a lot of them are at martha's vineyard. >> let me dive into the survey monkey. and obviously we use survey monkey as a national partner. you did. so everybody's going to look at these head to heads and it's hard because you worry that it ends up discrediting the entire project. and people are going to get so fixated on a head to head. but explain what you guys actually did with this project. because i think it's pretty impressive. >> our ambition was to do every state at the same time with the same methodology. and survey monkey provides that opportunity.

>> relatively inexpensive -- >> relatively inexpensive. we did this 20 years ago with nbc in the traditional way. we couldn't afford to do that anymore. >> cost prohibitive. >> he we just can't do it anymore. so what this does, i know people look at some of the outliers and say, well, how did that happen or how did that happen? to us the value of this is you're able to get samples big enough in every state, virtually every state, that you can look at different demographic groups and then you can compare them across the country. and you can from that, you can begin to see why hillary clinton has an electoral college advantage even if the polling generally, nationally and in some of these states has narrowed. >> all right. i'm going to do a -- if you could only get the result in the exit poll of one demographic group on election night, and i'm not going to give you the result of anything else, you can't watch returns, but i can give you that number for all the battleground states, what would it be? >> i don't think there's any question about it in this election. and it's white college

graduates. that vote, historically republican. mitt romney carried it 56-42. >> somewhere -- >> four years ago. donald trump is losing that vote at this point. and he's losing it in large part because he's losing white college-educated women. so that is the key constituency to watch. >> same test for you. are you with him? >> i'd come back -- i'd narrow it even more. i'd say white college graduate men. >> the women are already there. with clinton. >> they're already with hillary. and they're the most -- of the different socioeconomic groups, they're the most anti-republican bloc out there. but trump is struggling with white college-educated men. if he can't win them, even if he only ties with them, that's really bad news. >> what should the spread be for him? what's a winning -- what's an electoral college winning spread? >> romney won 359% of white college men. >> 59%. so it's got to be somewhere there. a double-digit win. >> i think it's got to be higher than that.

because she's going to do better with white college women. >> let me hit at something that i know your partner felt like they wanted to redo-s and this is neil newhouse and romney in 2012, which is how do you figure out who the likely electorate looks like? i say this because we're going to start seeing i think the numbers are going to get worse. the reported numbers over the next two weeks. not better. because you're going to see a lot of people doing bad likely voter modeling. and reporting taking good polls and making them look bad. >> what's interesting is on the republican pollster side of things we are at this point in time still doing registered voters because instead of likely voters, because there is no perfect likely voter model. when you go back and you do tests of likely voters, how they answer polls and those who said i'm not likely to vote, a significant chuchk of those voters did vote. so as neil likes to say, a disinterested voter -- a

disinterested vote counts the same as an interested voter's vote. so now, that doesn't mean we're not going to change it and adjust it. it's a conversation that we're having, the pollsters with the national party groups, the senate committee, the nrcc are having about who should be the makeup. >> it's funny about this. enthusiasm, or excitement about an election traditionally has been used in some likely voter models. if there was ever an election that it seemed like that is a false positive if you're not careful, it's the enthusiasm number because you may have a lot of unenthusiastic voters for both candidates. >> i don't know how you get at that question in this election because there is so much dissatisfaction. one of the things we found is there's just great dissatisfaction, and we found it in this 50-state poll as we found it in our national polls all year long. if you're trying to measure the most enthusiastic or the gradations of enthusiasm, i think in some ways you're going to be missing the forest for the trees. >> so would you stick with

registereds the whole time? there were some who used to argue that you're better off sticking with them the whole time. knowing it's probably going to be a little tighter, a little closer for the r. but stick with it. >> one thing you can do is if you do that you can model the electorate more -- different ways and you're also less likely to miss some groups that say, you know, now we're not likely to turn out and yet still turn out. and part of that comes down to who's got the better turnout machine. and that's certainly something that keeps us republican strategists up at night. >> the other choice is just if you're doing both report both. and don't put a premium one over the other. >> i have to say a likely voter model that swings five points is pretty significant. you've got to ask yourself about that likely voter model. thanks for trying to do this. i think we spoke mostly english. a little pollingese. coming up, after a month of big name military officials backing hillary clinton, donald trump receives his own show of support on the national security front. we'll look at both campaigns and how they're trying to use military issues to help them ahead of tomorrow's commander in

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as we mentioned at the top of the show, the race appears to be closer nationally than it was a month ago, but clinton does remain in control of the battleground map. let's take a look at our brand new nbc news 2016 battleground map piece by piece. we'll start with the tossups. north carolina's the biggest change since last month. it's gone from leaning dem to tossup. still this map signals a bleak picture for trump because they could win every tossup in our list and still be short of 270. now we'll look at the leaner side, on the democratic side some big ones like virginia, colorado. pen. those are all battlegrounds where we believe clinton has an edge of five points or more plus organizationally. we factor a lot of things in, just not poll numbers. republican leaners include a bunch of states that should be more, frankly, safer but aren't. arizona, kansas, and utah are in

that list. clinton has a slightly smaller lead compared to last month but she still exceeds 270 if you count just the leans and solids. but more important, trump hasn't added anything to his column just yet. later in the show the trump political contribution. it feels to a lot of people like pay to play. more "mtp daily" right after this. w she writes mtly in emoji. soon, she'll type thbest essays in the entireth grade. get back to great. all computers on sale like this dell laptop. office depot officemax.

gear up for school. gear up for great. donald trump has been accusing hillary clinton of pay for play in recent weeks, even calling for a special prosecutor to investigate what he says was an improper relationship between the clinton foundation and the state department when clinton was secretary of state. clinton campaign and the foundation of course strongly deny those charges and no wrongdoing has been proven. but now trump, who has bragged before about making political donations as a way to curry favor, is responding to a potentially dicey issue of his own regarding allegations of, well, call it pay for play. trump's charitable foundation was fined for violating tax law. the donation and the concerns around it were first reported earlier this year.

quite a few organizations did. at issue a $25,000 donation back in 2013 from trump's charitable foundation to a group that was backing florida's attorney general, pam bondi. the donation was made four days after bondi's office announced it was considering joining an investigation into alleged fraud at trump university. bondi's office chose not to join the investigation. her spokesperson said there was no need because florida residents would be protected by the lawsuit that was taking place in other states. and trump himself is dismissing any allegations of impropriety. >> first of all, she's beyond reproach. she's a fine person. never spoke to her about it at all. >> what were you hoping to get out of that donation? >> i've just known pam bondi for years. i have a lot of respect for her. never spoke to her about that at all. and just have a lot of respect for her as a person. and she's done an amazing job as the attorney general of florida. >> trump organization also told the "washington post" their failure to disclose the gift was

an error and trump's campaign called it a "minor issue." fine was paid and trump reportedly reimbursed the foundation directly. national political correspondent and correspondent for yahoo! news and "washington post" columnist ruth marcus. hello to both of you. pay to play. maybe pay to play's the wrong descriptor here. >> pay to shut down the game? >> pay to be left alone. >> pay to be left alone. trump himself in that answer gave an answer that i think a lawyer would have a lot of fun with, which he says never talked to her about this at all. known her a long time. okay. if it's somebody you've known a long time, been following her, you didn't have any conversation about anything? hard to believe. >> he was actually surprisingly careful with her for whatever reason. his usual stance as you point out in your introduction is yeah, of course i give everybody money to smooth the way. that's how the system works. i'm going to come and fix it. that happens to be his best argument. the fact that he is so careful

about this is interesting and also that it involves trump university which just keeps rearing its head as an issue because it is really probably the ugliest piece of his portfolio for political purposes. >> it's very hard for him to defend. i don't feel -- >> very hard. >> if there was something to defend about it or promote about it, he'd be doing it. >> trump university. >> that's right. nothing to promote about it. >> and that lawsuit continues. and it's nice of pam bondi to outsource the protection of her citizens to other attorneys general. that's not the way they usually operate. but if i were the lawyer with trump i would not be having fun with that statement. i would be showing him all the things he said before about what he gets from politicians for giving to them and the reasons behind his gifts to them because he has never before talked about it in terms of i have enormous respect for them and i've known them for years and i give them because then when i call them up they do what i want. >> he gave a very polished political answer. hillary clinton is having a little fun with pam bondi today.

here's what she has to say. >> i am quite taken aback by the foundation making a political contribution to the florida attorney general, who was just about to investigate trump university and then ending the investigation. i mean, there are so many things that are questionable about that, and the irs certainly thought so. and said it was illegal and fined trump. for that set of facts. >> our panel is expanded by one. you made it here. let me welcome you. former senior aide and political director to george w. bush. this pam bondi situation. when you look at the trump campaign wants to make her trustworthiness, the clinton foundation, they want to make it -- but as i asked mike pence on sunday, you guys could have

high ground or find higher ground here if you were trying to be as transparent. in some cases forcibly so. but whatever you want to say, the reason we're reporting on all this stuff on the clintons is it's out there. it's been disclosed. nothing's been disclosed from trump world. >> right. i don't think it's in donald trump's interest with a few short weeks to the election to be disclosing -- >> it's not in hillary clinton's interest to have the e-mails be disclosed either, right? >> his best chance for winning this election is to make it about hillary clinton, and if the election is about donald trump we know how that story's going to turn out. so i think the trump campaign is playing this the right way. if i were them i wouldn't be releasing this information. >> i guess what i'd go with is what should the clinton campaign do in this case? because i think sara's right. they're never going to get their hands on those tax returns. it's not going to happen. and yet all of this disclosure that's there that they're stuck with on their part is going to happen. how do you deal with it? >> they're just going to keep

talking about what possibly he's not disclosing. they're so lucky here. i mean, both of these campaigns are incredibly lucky. either one of them would be getting thumped by a better candidate on either side. and -- >> we can say that if, if, if. but this is what we have. so we're dealing with the people we have, not the people we want. >> the donald rumsfeld approach. >> they're going to be a chorus. they're going to say release your tax returns, release your tax returns. did he pay any taxes? the rest of you have paid taxes. why didn't he? and you know, in the years that we know. and the other part is going to say pam bondi, pam bondi, pam bondi. and by the way, it's not just pam bondi. there was a large donation to texas governor -- >> a little harder -- the pam bondi, the timeline is -- >> for clinton, you know, you can talk about pam bondi and it looks off or abbott. but the volume of the challenges with clinton in this foundation is mounting. trump -- >> it's only if you believe the foundation is crooked.

if the foundation is not -- will i'm just saying you assume the foundation is doing something wrong. >> but if you look at just what's been discovered so far, it sure looks -- >> i understand perception. there's no doubt there's a perception problem. >> perception is reality in politics. >> that i agree. >> this is a growing problem for the clinton -- >> and they have not i think dealt -- they could have dealt with this in a cleaner way. >> that answer on trump just now on bondi terribly. >> it took her too long. because she was thinking about how does this impact -- >> me. how does this impact me? and i have no moral authority -- >> what matters -- >> the foundation does wonderful work. you could have questions about -- >> how it goes about its fund-raising. >> the answer to that is they didn't really -- to the extent that they were trying to use themselves to insinuate -- get results from the state department, it didn't seem to create a lot. and that is why this pam bondi story revives. we could have been talking about this for months. has some power now. >> issues don't -- issues don't

affect candidates equally. it all depends on what your fault is as a candidate, what people perceive about you. those issues for her, those issues of ethics and entitlement are central to her -- >> how many people are probably throwing shoes at the tv going god damn it, he just said it's not equal. see, i knew it, it's never fair. >> i'm never fair. we know that. >> you guys are sticking around. let me sneak in a quick break. more "mtp daily" right after this. we're going to get into national security and the two candidates. be the you who doesn't cover

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welcome back to "mtp daily." since hillary clinton became the presumptive democratic nominee her campaign has been courting republican endorsements from national security establishment types that are unhappy with donald trump. all summer we saw the clinton campaign announce again and again republicans with some sort of national security credential backing her over trump. well, today the trump campaign is finally pushing back with a list of its own. they released a letter this morning signed by 88 retired generals and admirals. and in it they write they're endorsing trump because the country needs "a long overdue course correction in national security posture and policy." both campaigns spent today focused on military and veterans' issues. and of course they're going to be spending a lot of time on it tomorrow ahead of the commander in chooef forum which of course will be simulcast right here on msnbc and nbc. the first joint appearance of clinton and trump of the general

election. trump held a town hall conversation today focused on the military with retired general mike flynn in virginia beach. and the clinton campaign is out with a new battleground and cable tv ad spot that slams trump on military issues. >> i'm hillary clinton, and i approve this message. >> i know more about isis than the generals do. >> john mccain, a war hero -- >> he's not a war hero. >> he's a war hero. >> he's a war hero because he was captured. i like people who weren't captured. okay? >> donald trump compared his sacrifices to the sacrifices of two parents who lost their son in a war. >> how would you answer that? what sacrifice have you made for your country? >> i think i made a lot of sacrifices. >> trump is leading with military voters in the most recent nbc survey monkey poll from mid august. 51% of voters in military households support trump versus 41% for hillary. retired general -- major general sidney shacknow. general, thanks for being here. >> thank you for having me.

>> let me ask you about the basic phrase that i just quoted from your letter, which is you're supporting him because the country is long overdue for a course correction on its national security posture. explain exactly what you mean by that. when you say national security posture, what do you mean? >> well, we have to have a military that can implement our national policies. we have a military that is hunting for spare parts. we're cannibalizing aircraft to keep aircraft flying. the chief of staff of the army has just testified before congress saying that the army is at risk. we in general have had a bad time. this has been eight years, ten years of war. our troops are worn out. it's just a matter that requires

some adjustment that i think donald trump is the man to make it. >> what has he done to reassure you -- have you had any time with him? what did he do to reassure you that he had the temperament to do this, to be commander in chief? >> well, you know, some of the thing is there's a judgment call. but he's a strong leader. he's a nonsense leader. he's a successful businessman. he addresses issues that are important to me as a retired individual, that should be important to any american citizen. >> what is your concern about hillary clinton when you pick trump over her? you obviously must have had a concern. is it -- it sounds like it has to do with that she's just been part of the same foreign policy establishment. or is there something more? >> no, i think with mrs. clinton

is that we've had the clintons, the obamas, the bushes. the old suspects have been there. they tried it. they had their chance. and we're just digging ourselves deeper into the hole. there's nothing wrong with mrs. clinton. she's an honorable woman. has baggage. but i just think that donald trump is a better choice. we just have one or two choices. and a lot of it is judgment call. >> you got that right. general schachnow, thank you for your time, sir. appreciate it. appreciate you coming on. and thank you for your service. >> thank you very much. >> you got it. joining me now from the clinton campaign, former secretary of the navy and a clinton supporter richard danz ig. secretary danz ig, welcome, sir. >> thank you. it's great to be here. >> you're a supporter of secretary clinton. let me ask you a question that i was going to pose to him. i'll pose it to you. which is i think it was martin

dempsey, now former chairman of the joint chiefs, who was issuing a warning to all former generals and admirals, basically all of you guys that have worn the uniform, have a great title and are getting involved in politics. and he's a little nervous about it. do you get a little nervous about getting too involved in politics? even he sounded -- he's like they're both good people. and most military guys i've run into, they feel that way. they get a little uncomfortable with politics. >> yeah. i understand the feeling. i think there's something to it. i think none of us are comfortable with military people or other senior executives taking their time in service and making it the basis of some political propositions. having said that, i think there are two problems. one is there's a first amendment kind of issue here. it's good for people to come out, and military professionals shouldn't be less able than civilians like me to speak their minds about these things. the second thing is it's kind of an arms control problem really. even if you disapprove of it, if one side does it then the other side does it and there's this

kind of iteration. >> let me ask you, it sounds like the chief criticism for him, for why he's picking trump, and he's not alone in this, and he lumps -- it's the whole idea of clinton, bush, clinton, whatever you think of -- there's a foreign policy establishment of a bipartisan team that somehow got us way too involved in intervention. and trump's part of this other wing. that sounds like where he was coming from. what do you say to that criticism? >> well, first of all, i've heard this before. i think it was the proposition of the bush, george w. bush administration that we need to radically change the way we're approaching things, et cetera. i think we have a pretty strong sense of where that got us. the thing that didn't get mentioned in this, particularly in the comments that trump's a strong leader, is just the fundamental fact that hillary clinton's a professional. and while that may make her associated with the establishment, donald trump is clearly in national security matters an amateur as against her professional skills. and that then exposes us to a

huge raft of difficulties, uncertainties, and probably missteps that she's not going to make. and it isn't just experience. she has a temperament that says what is it to be a professional in these contexts. don't let your personality intrude. don't let your irritation. >> right. but obviously the concern on that is do you end up -- does it end up creating group think? when you get in there -- jim fallos wrote a fascinating piece, that in general the entire political community here in washington is almost too deferential to military leaders. you're smiling. >> i'm smiling because first of all, yeah, there are risks of groupthink in this approach. on the other side of the coin i thought one of the most striking documents in this campaign was the "wall street journal" reprint of the mayo clinic descriptions of narcissism, which fit trump to the t. you have the other, in this sel self-reverential internally oriented kind of view. who are his national security advisers? they're not these 88 people. i noticed the general didn't

answer your question about whether he met with trump. they're basically trump's children and his friends. i think it's great he's a good father and has these great relationships but i don't want his children to be national security advisers. i don't see where he's getting any expertise from. so as between the dangers of working with the establishment and the dangers of being a freelancer, boy, i don't want a fry lancer in the national security world. >> if you look back, and i guess the question is what would you advise secretary clinton to do? you have a public that he brought up something. the country is worn out. worn out from the middle east. however you want to describe it. it's just worn out. you have to deal with that fatigue. >> absolutely. >> because it's going to have an impact on decisions that you make. what do you tell her to reassure the public that no, she isn't going to get stuck in groupthink? >> i think i'd tell her three things. first, got to pay attention to vets. she's remarkably strong on that. they come home with what she called invisible wounds. her father was a vet. she lived with it all her life. you need to emphasize that. second, with respect to the

existing troops and the like, you need to recognize that military investments need to be strong and we need to refresh the troops. but then third, i think you have to find a balance between engaged and non-engagement. you can't simply say i'm going to forget about the world and it would be better for to us just rest. on the other hand, you should have a presumption against going in and using military intervention unless there's a really strong case for it. i think she understands that. i see on trump's side kind of an impetuousness that he units understand it. >> we'll find out more tomorrow at this forum. should be fascinating. a lot of vets will be asking questions. richard danz ig, thank you for your service. you can catch the commander in chief forum live from the intrepid sea air and space museum in new york city. it will be tomorrow 8:00 p.m. eastern, 7:00 central. msnbc and nbc. you'll be able to see a lot of us broadcasting from the intrepid. kind of a cool thing to do tomorrow. still ahead, the president's rough weekend abroad and how donald trump thinks he can capitalize on it. stay tuned.

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leadership. donald trump: "knock the crap out of them, would you? seriously..."vo: clear thinking... donald trump: "i know more about isis than the generals do, believe me." vo: and calm judgment. donald trump: "and you can tell them to go fu_k themselves." vo: because all it takes is one wrong move. donald trump audio only: "i would bomb the sh_t out of them." vo: just one. hey, it's the day after labor day, which means somebody's launching something somewhere. well, today it's us. launching a new daily segment where we'll bring you some of the stories that i'm obsessed with. you'll see it at this point in the show most nights, and tonight it's another slate of polls viewers feel -- that viewers should feel free to ignore. they're not political polls. you know what polls i'm about to talk about. i'm obsessed with college football preseason polls. the way too early rankings of the teams that are already

looking flawed after week 1. our friends at a.p. and awe sade coaches' polls are both out today, and we're already seeing gigantic shake-ups from the preseason. lsu collapsed falling from 5 to number 21. the tigers down from number 6 to number 22 in "usa today." oklahoma, they dropped out of the top 10 in both polls. and if you need a reason to take preseason polls with a grain of salt, lsu gave you a big one on saturday with its 16-14 loss to an unranked wisconsin. first college football game at lambeau field in more than 30 years, oh, by the way. then there's the performance of the supposedly number 2-ranked oklahoma sooners. the sooners were then defeated by supposedly number 15 houston cougars. 33-23. even clemson, which started its season at number 2 in some polls, struggled against an unranked auburn. they did finally defeat the other tigers 19-13. but the surprise losses are not exactly an anomaly. the a.p. poll is the industry standard. it polled 61 sports writers and broadcasters around the country. but just last year just four teams in the a.p.'s top ten in

the preseason remained in the top ten at the end of the season. 2012 five of ten. 2011 six of ten. you get the picture. even given the numbers of the chaos of presidential polling today, that 50% record sounds pretty abysmal when it comes to the top ten as far as college football's concerned. so feel free to ignore those way too early rankings of college football teams. and wait to see which team actually shows up on gameday, say, mid october. which by the way might be the best time to see the presidential polling as well. we'll be right back. it's not something you do now and then. or when it's convenient. it's usg state-of-the-art simulators to better prepare for any situation. it's giving offshore teams onshore support. and it's empowering anyone to stop a job if something doesn't seem right. at bp, safety is never being satisfied. and always working to be better.

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so if your favorite college football team lost its opener, yore not the only one coming off a tough weekend. president obama had a rough start to his trip to southeast asia. as air force one touched down in china chinese and american officials argued over how the president would exit from the plane. donald trump called the incident a snub. >> i see obama is now over in

china. they won't even give him stairs, proper stairs to get out of the airplane. did you see that? there are pictures of other leaders going there and they're coming down with a beautiful red carpet. and obama's coming down a metal staircase. i've got to tell you, if that were me i'd say you know what, folks, i respect you a lot. let's close the doors. let's get out of here. it's a sign of such disrespect. >> then president obama canceled a bilateral meeting with the controversial new filipino leader after duterte said he would swear at the u.s. president if he lectured him on extrajudicial killings and called him a "s.o.b." strained interactions and disrespect from foreign leaders. could this trip have played any more directly into donald trump's hands? obviously it wasn't intentional. panelists, matt bai, ruth marcus and sara fagen. ruth, you've done a lot of foreign trips i think. >> indeed. back in the day. >> back in the day.

using that phrase. having problems with the chinese is not new. but there was something about what the chinese did that felt like they knew exactly the reaction they might provoke from donald trump. i don't think it was an accident. >> well, and actually, maybe others knew the reaction it would provoke from donald trump. i'm not sure this played into donald trump's hands -- >> i donate know if it does or not. >> right. because the clinton campaign understandably jumped on his reaction. look, you don't want another country to get away with dissing your leader. and so it was totally appropriate for the president to cancel his meeting with the philippine leader. on the other hand, you don't want to upend an entire international g20 summit because of a perceived snub. so the notion that president trump would have just said, hey, guys, wheels up, we're going home, cancel this gig, not really the best advertisement for being ready for the presidency. >> i must say that's an interesting way of putting it. on one hand he can sit there and say see, they don't respect us.

that feeds into this narrative he's been trying -- they don't respect us, they're just -- and here's an example of them not respecting us. >> it's true. >> but what about the volatility issue? >> i think that is the two sides of the coin dealing with. donald trump is right to point out that president obama was disrespected and that says something about the obama administration and how the obama administration has led -- >> says a lot about the chinese, though. the chinese play games. >> of course they do. they have played games for a long time bipartisanly. i don't think that's a word. they have been bipartisan in their approach. but you're right. donald trump, if he has a chance to win in november, needs to cross a threshold of acceptability and needs to give voters, particularly college educated men, a belief that he's going to make the right decision when incidents like this happen or even worse. this is just a snub. when something tragic really happens and lives are at stake. he didn't do that. i agree with ruth. i don't think he did that. he took it too far. >> interesting.

>> the other way to put this is that there's a segment of voters who will vote for donald trump because they think president obama is a weak-kneed leader who buckles to foreign powers and we need someone to stand up and scream and show some spine. unfortunately, he's already got all of them. they are all voting for him already. what we are saying is in order to get further than that, in order to expand that base of support you have to show leadership qualities people think are lacking. >> tomorrow will mean a lot. >> people want leaders but they don't want petty leaders. the thing i was having a gnashback to with the stairs was the famous incident when newt gingrich had to go out the back stairs and not -- didn't get the red carpet treatment with president clinton. so it was a very dicey thing for trump to do. >> whatever that line is, she did just identify it. there's that line where people start mocking you for feeling self-important. >> correct. >> whatever that is. >> i agree with that. but i'm not so sure this wasn't

just a really bad chain of events by the chinese that they really were trying to snub the united states. the president downplayed it. the president is the only person who played this perfectly. >> every time i have been to china with the president, both times, there's always an incident. >> of course. >> the chinese government loves -- they don't like our free press. they don't like a lot of things about us. they tweak at those things. >> they do, but they care deeply about how they are perceived around the world and they look small. they are smart enough to know how small they look. >> maybe. we'll see. i want to put up something else. trump said something that's getting a little bit of attention and i think he's -- i think it really does depend on the gender of the ear that hears the comment. take a listen. >> i just don't think she has a presidential look. you need a presidential look. you have to get the job done. >> a presidential look. >> it'sridiculous. >> what is that?

>> well -- >> you're speechless. >> i will let donald trump define what a presidential look is. but i do not like hillary clinton. i think it's unfortunate that we are where we are in the democratic party that she's the nominee. i will not vote for her. would never consider voting for her. she looks i think better than she has in a really long time. and she certainly looks presidential. to suggest otherwise, i think, says something about donald trump, not about hillary clinton. >> what else could he possibly mean? he said she doesn't have a presidential look and then he flipped it around and said a couple times she just doesn't look presidential. well, we know, we know at least -- >> that's what i mean. >> -- what he means. >> women will hear something different. >> she doesn't look like the other guys who have come along. >> that's factually true. >> i think it's actually worse than that. >> every single president, we have only had two presidents that have looked like previous presidents. bush looked like his father and adams looked like his father. other than that, they do not look the same. >> it's a male/female thing.

i think it's worse than that, unfortunately. >> really? what is it? >> i think it's that she doesn't look a certain way. it's okay if you are female but you better look a certain part and she doesn't look it. that's the way i -- >> i think it's just clear -- >> pure gender bias? >> pure gender. >> matt? >> i think it's gender bias, too. i think it's hard to read it any other way. i'm going home to a daughter and a wife. look, i think it is. but again, it underscores, he's obsessed with how people in general look. >> men and women. >> men and women. >> yes. yes. yes. >> there are certain people who aren't allowed to do tv on behalf of the trump campaign because he doesn't like how they look on mute on air. it has nothing to do, this is machi men and women. >> what their differences are, what sets them apart, what's weird, what's strange about them. it's childish. it's disrespectful. i think it turns off a large segment of the american

electorate which is why he's losing an election the republicans should be winning. >> what did carly fiorina meant? people do know what you meant. that's the problem. what people are hearing. >> another way of restating this. >> if you are not doing well with the college educated women, might not be the best thing to say. >> on that, i will leave it there. thank you all. back with one more story you might have missed. when it helps give a lifesaving vaccine to a child in need. ♪ thanks to customers like you, walgreens "get a shot. give a sh." program has helped provide 15 million vaccines through the un foundation. it's that easy to ke a difference. ♪ walgreens. at the corner of happy and healthy. ♪"my friends know me so well. they can tell what i'm thinking, just by looking in my eyes. but what they didn't know was that i had dry, itchy eyes.

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in case you missed it, some new evidence that colin

kaepernick's protest might actually be resonating across the country. monday, the president acknowledged that for some people it is a tough thing to see the nfl quarterback kneel instead of stand during the national anthem. the president also defended his constitutional right to make that statement. on sunday, u.s. soccer star megan rapinoe joined kaepernick kneeling saying she also wants to spark meaningful conversation. here maybe the strongest evidence yet that the protest is hitting home. more kaepernick gear has sold online in the last week than in the past eight months combined. as of this afternoon, kaepernick's red 49ers jersey is the nfl's number one selling jersey. so while everybody has been having one conversation about the protest, the act itself, there's clearly a lot of people who are moved by the incident, about the substance of what he is actually protesting. we have spent more time on the

active protest than the substance. that's all we have tonight. back tomorrow with more. don't miss the premiere of the 11th hour with brian williams tonight at guess when? 11:00 p.m. eastern. "with all due respect" starts on time. i'm mark halperin. >> i'm john heilemann. "with all due respect" to those suggesting hillary clinton's coughing fits are reason for deep concerns about her health -- the seventh inning stretch is over, sports fans. today marks the first day of the final innings of the presidential race. the concession stands are closing and in exactly nine weeks we will have a winner and a different kind of concession speech. grab a beer and pray this thing doesn't go into extras because there are some big news-making polls out that appear to show the contest has tightened. but before we